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Greg Murphy: Snap Happy
by Jack Bowers
A powerful and perceptive reading of Bronislau Kaper's “On Green Dolphin Street" sets the compass on Snap Happy, a splendid recording by pianist Greg Murphy's trio (and sometimes quartet) which is the New York-based artist's eighth album as leader of his own groups. To begin where the rubber meets the road, Murphy is a marvelous pianist, undergirding his superb technique with an abundance of sharp and creative digressions that should gladden almost any listener. Yet even while ...
Continue ReadingSteve Johns: Mythology
by David A. Orthmann
Over the past twenty years, drummer Steve Johns has appeared dozens of times in various venues and configurations throughout Northern New Jersey and the Hudson Valley, New York area. To name but a few examples, Johns with guitarist Bob DeVos's trio at Trumpets Jazz Club, in sessions led by bassist Mark Hagan at the Old 76 House, and in a series curated by tenor saxophonist John Richmond at The Turning Point Café--all small, intimate venues--enabled listeners to see and hear ...
Continue ReadingPeter Hand: Blue Topaz
by Jack Bowers
Peter Hand has a hand in almost everything on Blue Topaz, playing masterful guitar, writing seven of the album's ten engaging numbers and arranging all of them. He also spliced together a pair of blue-chip ensembles for his first small-group recording after three well-received big-band albums, and invited his longtime friend--and legendary tenor saxophonist--Houston Person to sit in on two tracks. Person had also guested on one of the guitarist's big-band recordings, Out of Hand (2014). Hand's ...
Continue ReadingDavid Janeway: Interchange
by Dan McClenaghan
Unearthing and releasing old music--even sounds sourced from decades old tapes--has become common in jazz. Pianist Bill Evans (thank you. Zev Feldman) has enjoyed something of a twenty-first-century renaissance. Pianist Fred Hersch released @ The Village Vanguard (Palmetto Records, 2018), recorded in 1997; and 2021 saw the posthumous release from pianist Masabumi Kikuchi, Hanamichi (Red Hook), recorded in 2013. Pianist David Janeway has been on the scene since the late 70s; he offered up the marvelous Distant Voices ...
Continue ReadingMeredith d'Ambrosio: Sometime Ago
by Angelo Leonardi
Dopo dieci anni di silenzio discografico è un gran piacere ascoltare un nuovo album della cantante di Boston, il diciassettesimo per la Sunnyside, con cui pubblica dalla metà degli anni ottanta, qualche anno dopo il suo debutto. Più che cantante Meredith preferisce definirsi “song stylist" e tale resta all'età di 81 anni, senza perdere un grammo di classe interpretativa e pregevole essenzialità. Con l'età il timbro s'è irrobustito, conferendo nuove ombreggiature al suo eloquio ma intonazione e ...
Continue ReadingEric Goletz: Standard-ized!
by Jack Bowers
If variety is on your wish list, you will find a lot to like on Standard-ized!, New York-based trombonist Eric Goletz's third album in three years. Group size and makeup are seldom the same, Goletz's charts traverse new realms, there are special guests to enhance the proceedings, and Goletz even enlists a six-piece string “orchestra" on several numbers. The strings accompany one of the guests, vocalist LaJuan Carter, on the Nat King Cole chart-topper, “Nature Boy," and ...
Continue ReadingEric Goletz: A New Light
by Richard J Salvucci
Eric Goletz is a virtuoso trombonist who also writes and arranges. On first hearing, his core band may put some in mind of Chase, Bill Chase's high-flying group that featured both vocals and technically demanding trumpet. Goletz has something similar going on. The music opens with “Prelude: Before the Light" and “A New Light," with a stinging solo by guitarist Henry Heinitsch. Goletz, it may be observed, is the logical outcome of jazz-rock and funk meets brass ...
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